‘Best of Wikipedia’ is a time-suck

I love Wikipedia. It’s often my first stop when I’m looking for information — and if Google is my first stop, then it generally leads me to Wikipedia right away.

If I’m bored online, I know that there’s always a featured Wikipedia article that will entertain me for a few minutes. And sometimes I play a game with myself where I try to get to a specific Wikipedia page from whatever other Wikipedia page I’m on. (Let’s say I’m reading about World War 2, and I suddenly want to read about, say, the latest Hollywood blockbuster. You’d have to get there just following the links in the page — no searches).

Now, though, I’ve been introduced to a sped-up, even more addicting version of that featured article. Daniel Finkelstein of the Times Online tells me this:

I’ve just stumbled across a brilliant blog, but first, a warning:

If you’re busy at work, busy as in ‘can’t afford to be completely and inexplicably sucked up and then spat out again a good 30 minutes later’, then it’s probably best you read no further.

Best of Wikipedia cuts through the zillions of Wikipedia entries and delivers a twice daily pick of the most curious.

As a form of encyclopedic-russian-roulette it can’t be beat. But another warning: it makes no claim that the material conforms to anything more than Wikipedia’s usual standards of truthfulness…

He re-links to “Best of Wikipedia” things like:

• Mary Toft [née Denyer] (c. 1701–1763), also called Mary Tofts, was an English woman from Godalming, Surrey, who in 1726 became the subject of considerable controversy when she hoaxed doctors into believing that she had given birth to rabbits.
• The Cure for Insomnia is officially the world’s longest movie, running 5220 minutes (87 hours) in length. The movie has no plot.
• Nix v Hedden was a case in which the United States Supreme Court addressed whether a tomato was classified as a fruit or a vegetable under the Tariff Act of March 3, 1883, which required a tax to be paid on imported vegetables, but not fruit.

…and I guess now I’m done work for the day.